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WKMG
WKMG-TV, virtual channel 6 (UHF digital channel 26), is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Orlando, Florida, United States. The station is owned by the Graham Media Group subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company. WKMG's studios are located on John Young Parkway (SR 423) in Orlando, and its transmitter is located in unincorporated Bithlo, Florida. On cable, the station is available in standard definition on channel 5 on Charter Spectrum, channel 7 on Comcast Xfinity, and channel 6 on CenturyLink Prism and in outlying areas, and in high definition on Spectrum channel 1060, Xfinity channel 433, and Prism channel 1006. History The station first signed on the air on July 1, 1954 under the callsign WDBO-TV, standing for the two major cities in the market; Daytona Beach and Orlando. Or, as it was informally known, "Way Down By Orlando". It is the sixth-oldest television station in Florida, and the oldest in Central Florida. It was originally owned by the Orlando Broadcasting Company, which also owned WDBO radio (580 AM and 92.3 FM, now WWKA). Its original studios were located on Texas Avenue, just north of Colonial Drive. As the only station in the market at its inception, it originally carried programming from all four networks of the time—CBS, NBC, ABC and DuMont. DuMont would shut down most network operations in 1955, but honor network commitments until 1956; at that point, DuMont programming disappeared from the schedule. It lost NBC when Daytona Beach's WESH expanded its signal to cover all of Central Florida in November 1957, and ABC when WLOF-TV (now WFTV) signed on in February 1958. Orlando Broadcasting merged with Cherry Broadcasting in 1957. In 1963, WDBO-AM-FM-TV were sold to The Outlet Company, marking that company's first major broadcasting acquisition outside of its homebase in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1982, the WDBO radio stations were sold to Katz Broadcasting, as Outlet decided to begin exiting radio. Outlet was nearly bought out by Columbia Pictures around the same time. In advance of this, channel 6 prematurely changed its call letters to WCPX-TV on June 6 (which stood for "Columbia Pix", shorthand for "Pictures"). While the deal fell through, channel 6 kept the WCPX calls for 16 years. The station moved into its current studios on John Young Parkway in 1984. Outlet pared down its holdings after a buyout in 1986, selling off many of its television stations. At that point, WCPX was sold to First Media Television. In the early 1990s, WCPX decided to move the CBS program Picket Fences from Friday evenings to 11:35 p.m. on Saturdays, instead airing the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation in primetime on Fridays, a rarity for a big three network affiliate. WCPX also pre-empted some CBS Sports programs as well. In 1994, WCPX hired a new general manager, Brooke Spectorsky, from WUAB in Cleveland (Spectorsky is now general manager of that city's NBC affiliate WKYC). Under Spectorsky, WCPX put Picket Fences back at its normal time and the station added stereo sound capability as well in July 1995. In 1995, WCPX was one of the first CBS affiliates to air Guiding Light at 10 a.m. instead of 3 p.m., which was the network's recommended timeslot for the program. Under this arrangement, the program would air on a delay with episodes running one day behind. However, CBS soon discovered that several of its owned-and-operated stations were using the same scheduling for the program as WCPX. CBS then decided to provide two (eventually three) same-day feeds of Guiding Light to its stations (one at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., and 3 p.m.). WKMG aired Guiding Light at 9 a.m., until the soap opera ended its run on September 18, 2009; the practice continued for its successor program, Let's Make a Deal, through the end of the 2015–16 season. In the fall of 2016, Let's Make a Deal was moved back to 3 p.m. as a lead-in to WKMG's 4 p.m. newscast. In 1997, First Media merged with the Meredith Corporation, which already owned Fox affiliate WOFL (channel 35). At the time, duopolies were not allowed, and Meredith decided to keep WOFL (which has since been sold to Fox Television Stations). In mid-1997, Meredith swapped WCPX to what was then known as Post-Newsweek Stations in exchange for Hartford, Connecticut's WFSB (which at the time was Post-Newsweek's flagship station). The trade reunited WCPX with KSAT-TV in San Antonio, which Outlet sold to H&C Communications in 1986 and then sold it to Post-Newsweek in 1994. On January 30, 1998, the station changed its callsign to WKMG in honor of longtime Washington Post publisher, Katharine M. Graham, with the WCPX call letters going to Chicago's Pax TV station in August of that same year. As of recently, WKMG is the last "Big Six" affiliate in Orlando that is not part of any television duopoly (Fox's WOFL and WRBW, Cox Media Group's WFTV and WRDQ, and Hearst Television's WESH and WKCF). Post-Newsweek Stations became Graham Media Group on July 28, 2014. Category:CBS affiliated stations Category:Orlando Category:Florida Category:Channel 6 Category:1954 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1954 Category:Graham Media Group Category:Former NBC Affiliates Category:Former ABC affiliates Category:Former DuMont Affiliates Category:Former NTA Film Network affiliates Category:VHF Category:CBS Florida Category:Cozi TV Affiliates Category:Decades Affiliates Category:Start TV Affiliates Category:Dabl Affiliates